This book presents psychoanalytic thinking about the phenomenon of the couple and couple dynamics in internal and external reality and at different levels of organization: the "couple" in the individual’s internal world, the dynamics between partners in a couple relationship, and the dynamics between the couple and the group. These different fields of observation shift the focus between the figure and the ground, from the "couple" in the individual and the individuals in the couple to the couple in the group. Contributors bring different perspectives from theory and their therapeutic practice about how these multiple levels influence and constitute each other.

Series Editors’ PrefaceAcknowledgementsAbout the Editor and ContributorsIntroduction

1) Aggression, love, and the couple—Otto F. Kernberg2) Narcissistic problems in sharing space—Ronald Britton3) Couples and primitive processes—R .D. Hinshelwood4) Transference and enactment in the “oedipal setting” of couple psychotherapy—Andrew Balfour5) The quarrelling couple: the couple’s unconscious relations and enactments—Aleksandra Novakovic6) Couples becoming parents: a clinical example—David Hewison7) Couple and family dynamics and triangular space in group psychotherapy—David Vincent8) Oscillating images: perceptions of couples in organizations—William Halton & Jenny Sprince9) Belonging to a body larger than one’s own: the pair in the group, the organization, and society—Richard Morgan-Jones

ReferencesIndex

About the Editor:

Aleksandra Novakovic is a couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist and a psychoanalyst. She was Joint Head of the Inpatient & Community Psychology Service and a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in the Adult Mental Health Psychology Service. She worked at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relationships and taught and supervised on the Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training. She teaches for the British Psychoanalytic Association and supervises on the Reflective Practice in Organizations Course, Institute of Group Analysis. She co-edited (with David Bell), Living on the Border: Psychotic Processes in the Individual, the Couple and the Group (2013).